


Shattered

by lemonpiefirefly



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Culmets - Freeform, Episode Tag, Heavy Angst, M/M, My First AO3 Post, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Happy, POV Paul, Rejection, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonpiefirefly/pseuds/lemonpiefirefly
Summary: Season: Mid season 2Spoilers: up to and including S2E8, "If Memory Serves"Summary: What if you got that second chance you wanted so desperately - against all odds and every law of the known universe - and it didn't want you back?
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jackwabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackwabbit/gifts).



> Episode vignette; takes place after the aborted attempt to jump to Talos IV.
> 
> Dedicated to jackwabbit, and an additional hearty thanks for initial beta*. More accolades in footnote.  
> *(I added more to the fic later; all errors are mine alone).

I don't even remember walking back to our quarters. When the spore drive failed, there was too much to be repaired and reset to let my mind wander to what had just happened. It was hours before we were done, and I could barely see straight when I left engineering.

I let myself in and stood just inside the doorway – as the air suddenly _stopped_. The doors quietly whisked shut behind me; it felt like I was standing between them as they closed, crushing the wind out of me.

Even in my exhausted daze, I could tell _everything_ was different. I stood there, transfixed, and then felt my heart start pounding as a wave of adrenaline crashed over me. I took a shaky step forward and then started dashing around, confirming my fears.

As I threw open drawers and cabinets, I saw it was real. He had taken them. _All_ of them. All of his things. The things that had been my last tangible bridge to him for all the time he was gone, the artifacts of our shared life together, the things that said: _**you didn't dream it. You once really were loved.**_

Finally, all those drawers hung open. Empty.

I stopped. Time stopped.

I don't know how long I stood in utter disbelief, surrounded by the wreckage of a life I'd just restarted. My heart was still pounding, but with a dull ache that brought back my bone-weariness. I didn't even have the energy to cry.

My exhausted eyes finally rested on a small pair of crystalline teacups on the counter. A pair we'd bought together at a little outdoor bazaar on our first leave as a married couple. He'd loved the way they sparkled; I'd just _had_ to get them for him.

It was the _only_ thing in this whole damned place that even said he'd ever been here. I felt my legs start to move as I was pulled over to the bright little things. They looked so incongruous now. I stopped short of touching them, and just stared. Everything slowed again and my thoughts seemed to finally catch up.

_You died. You died and I_ couldn't _let go. But that's as it was supposed to be because_ somehow _, in this universe of infinite possibilities, we_ _got a second chance. We could do it all again. I could listen to your music with a smile this time. I could make you dinner this time. I could watch each grain of sand as it dropped through the hourglass and know I'd made it_ count _this time._

I picked up one of the delicate, shimmering cups and held it up to the light. A little rainbow refracted out from the beveled design and a little memory flashed by. I could see Hugh's glowing face. I could hear him next to me, “ _Oh, Paul; they just_ sparkle. _We should get them – come on... a little gift for me. For our_ family _quarters.”_

Oh, gods; how _good_ it felt to know our time being apart was coming to an end. We could start a proper life together, in the same posting; no more long-distance heartache.

Hearing him say “ _our family_ ” like that had made me feel _whole._

Now I was alone in those same family quarters.

Not _ours_ anymore. Not to Hugh. He'd just called them _“your_ quarters.”

They were the only home we'd known on this ship. And they’d been so, so empty without him.

It _broke_ me to lose him.

But somehow, even death couldn't keep us apart.

We'd had a second chance after _death._

But faced with that incalculable opportunity for another life with me, he rejected me. Even _remembering_ everything we'd had, everything we'd been to each other, he'd rather face life alone.

He _chose_ to break me all over again.

My mind raced back over the time without him. When he was... gone. That blank, grey time that stretched on, where “I” was reduced to a simple amalgam of _Autonomic Nervous System_ and _Duty_. I'd spent all my time just focusing on the next task, because it's what I do. I solve the problems.

I do my job.

Now it was all crashing in on me again, but all at _once_.

I felt the months of despair and the mind-bending insanity of hope after seeing him in the mycelial network. Time after time, I'd wanted to glimpse him again and got nothing but further away from my own sanity. I'd finally given up on my dream and planned to teach at the Vulcan Science Academy, just to get away from the temptation of _one more search._ I thought my only chance was retreating to a place of science - and little emotion.

Suddenly I'd seen him again and felt his terror at living feral with the jahSepp, the impossibility that he would be lost again, and then the near divinity of his return.

I also felt his worry and his distance despite all that I tried to do to make him feel at home. I felt my _fear_ as he yelled at me and swept the dishes of our meal to the floor, further stoked by witnessing his uncontrolled physical rage in the fight at the mess hall.

I felt the finality of those words, “It's _not_ my home anymore, Paul. That version of me that called _your_ quarters home? That version of me is dead. And I'm not going back.”

And all I could ultimately say was “okay.”

Fucking “ ** _okay_.**”

It all finally landed on me. My eyes burned and I could barely breathe, my chest was so tight with months of unacknowledged grief and now _terror_ at this person who I could recognize by everything but his own actions.

In one swift motion, I turned and flung the crystal cup at the wall.

The sharp sound of destruction instantly filled me with panicked regret as it shattered, shards littering the floor.

A reflex deeper than the grief kicked in. _How could I destroy this?_

I didn't stop to think as I flung myself down and hastily grasped at some of the bigger pieces, desperate to scrape them up and mend them together. I didn't even feel the cuts; my first clue was the red drops blooming on the crystal. I sat there, transfixed, wondering how – after everything that had happened since I stepped foot on this damned ship – there was still a heart beating in me to drive this blood out onto the floor. Even more surprising was that I still cared to staunch it.

I gingerly released the little daggers and shakily got to my feet. I wobbled to the head and over to the sink. I began rinsing off the cuts. They were starting to sting and throb, and I focused all my attention on these peripheral pains. They weren't serious, but they were enough to distract me. Suddenly, Hugh’s voice was in my head again. _“I'm not letting anyone fix things I can feel.”_ As I stood over the sink, desperately clinging to my aching hands instead of my empty chest, I decided to follow the _good doctor's_ lead, and simply let the crimson drops slide down my fingers and swirl with the water into the basin. I didn't have it in me to reach for the small dermal regenerator Hugh normally had stowed in the drawer. Or even to look to see if that was gone, too.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The only color left in my face was in my red-rimmed eyes and purple nose. I never could hide when I was crying.

When had I started crying? When would I stop?

_Who the fuck cares_ _?_ came the response from deep within. There was no one here to see it.

The trickles of blood had slowed. I reached over to grab a small towel to wrap around the hand that had gotten the worst of it. As I pulled it to me, I knocked something off the counter. I bent down to pick it up, and saw it was a toothbrush. _His_ toothbrush.

I was too tired to stand up; too heavy. I felt myself collapse in a heap. I clutched my bandaged hand to my chest, there in a ball on the floor – right there by the sink. The place we had always tried to meet up whenever we had time overlapping in our quarters. The place where everything had been said. The place where we had communicated in small caresses and warm looks. The moments that really said “home” and “family” and “safe” – they’d all occurred in this very spot. Here is where we had always wound down from the day, focusing on each other and not the work.

There was a knot in my throat and each breath out left me like a sob, but I was too spent to make more than that quiet, gulping sound.

Just then I felt a touch, felt a hand run through my hair. I froze; I didn't want to break this spell. Was it...?

As it dawned through my fog that it was my own, bandage-blunted hand, I finally broke.

_You chose_ nothing _over me._

**Author's Note:**

> Additional thanks to jackwabbit for the following "enabling" actions:  
> introducing me to proper fandom those long years ago, many lovely stories over scads of mutual fandoms, abiding my attempts at writing and making my few works so much better through their advice and careful beta, finally talking me into watching Disco, introducing me to CULMETS WHAT IS MY LIFE THIS IS WHAT A REAL OTP LOOKS LIKE, and generally being the best friend I could never have imagined. 
> 
> I finally posted something here, buddy ;) 
> 
> Additional story note: Rejection and grief over lost love sucks real, real bad. Learning that personally for the first time for realsies in middle age was rough. I bled for Paul hardcore in this episode.
> 
> Further note: I don't get the paragraph spacing thing here yet. Sorry for the gaps, all.


End file.
